Parents’ perceptions of occupational fit (experiment 2)

Last registered on November 18, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Parents’ perceptions of occupational fit (experiment 2)
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014813
Initial registration date
November 12, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
November 15, 2024, 1:49 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
November 18, 2024, 10:09 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Anne Brenøe
Affiliation
University of Zurich
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Daphne Rutnam
PI Affiliation
University of Zurich
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-11-13
End date
2027-12-31
Keywords
Education, Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
parents, occupational choice, vocational education
JEL code(s)
I24, J16, J24
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The goal of this experiment is to test whether parents’ perceptions of occupational fit affect students’ occupational aspirations and their beliefs about fit in certain occupations. Particularly, we test whether increasing the salience of opposite-gender parents’ perceptions of occupational fit decreases the occupational segregation by gender. To test this hypothesis, we designed a field experiment where we for treated students i) provide information about what other opposite-gender parents think would be a good occupational fit for their child, and ii) increase the salience of their own opposite-gender parent. We compare the treated group to a control group that does not receive information about other parents nor answer questions about their parents.

The randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be implemented among students from the German-speaking parts of Switzerland who plan to do an apprenticeship. In this setting, around two-thirds of a birth cohort will do an apprenticeship after compulsory education (typically starting after 9th grade). Although there are various possibilities for further training and education after the completion of an apprenticeship, the initial choice of the occupation of the apprenticeship is deterministic of eventual occupational choice.

This experiment supplements our first experiment: Brenøe, Anne and Daphne Rutnam. 2024. "Parents’ perceptions of occupational fit." AEARCTR-0012937
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Brenøe, Anne and Daphne Rutnam. 2024. "Parents’ perceptions of occupational fit (experiment 2)." AEA RCT Registry. November 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14813-1.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Students in the treatment group will i) receive information about what other opposite-gender parents (i.e. fathers for female students and mothers for male students) think would be a good occupational fit for their child, and ii) increase the salience of their own opposite-gender parent through some questions.
Intervention Start Date
2024-11-13
Intervention End Date
2025-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1) interests in gender-congruent occupations
2) beliefs about fit to gender-congruent occupations
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1) GC aspirations: collected through incentivized intentions to do a GC TA (measured by the share of same-gender apprentices in past cohorts they choose in a lottery where they can win a TA) and unincentivized intensions to choose GC relative to gender-incongruent (GIC) occupations (the number of points out of five allocated to GC occupations between four fictive apprenticeship offers).

2) Beliefs about GC fit: we construct a weighted summary index based on three questions about their beliefs about how well own skills fit, how much they would like the work tasks, and how well they would get along with colleagues if they would do an apprenticeship in a GC occupation. We ask these questions for two GC occupations.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
beliefs about fit to gender-incongruent occupations
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Beliefs about GIC fit: we construct this similarly to the beliefs about GC fit index, but here use two gender-incongruent (GIC) occupations instead.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The field experiment is implemented through an online survey. We recruit students for the survey through a popular newsletter and potentially through schools. We target students who are attending the last two years of compulsory schooling (8th and 9th grade) and adolescents who have completed compulsory education and are intending to do an apprenticeship next school year.

Students fill in a baseline questionnaire, are randomized into one of the two study arms, and fill in the immediate follow up questionnaire.

Randomization of the treatment will be done at the individual level. We stratify randomization by gender, by whether they answer an attention check question right before randomization correctly, and by a proxy for having high or low math skills. We will randomize 50% of the participants into each study arm.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is done by a computer (in Qualtrics).
Randomization Unit
individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Target sample size is 2,400 individuals.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Target sample size is 2,400 individuals.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1,200 control and 1,200 treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Our target sample size will allow us to detect effects of about 0.114 standard deviations in the outcome when we pool students of both genders. We will be able to detect effects of about 0.162 standard deviations by gender.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Human Subjects Committee of the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology at the University of Zurich
IRB Approval Date
2024-10-29
IRB Approval Number
OEC IRB # 2024-004.1
Analysis Plan

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